Here’s an example of the puppy mill conditions snakes in America get from many breeders today, and this video is by one of the country’s best breeders (and a pal of mine). The Burmese python dubbed Satan in this vid is in a reprehensibly small container for its size. If hobbyists lose the ability to keep reptiles in America it will be because of a combination of inappropriate species sold to amateurs (most often “huge pythons”) and inhumane caging for the sake of volume collecting or commercial-scale breeding… Sorry, Brian. As one of the country’s leading thinkers on reptile husbandry, “Big Responsibility” is yours, too.

When is a snake not just a snake? When you’ve got the tiara-clad girls of Sweetwater, Texas climaxing them for 30,000 Jaycees…

One of America’s last great organized despicable spectacles… From CNN:

The rattlesnakes are dumped into a large pen with hundreds of other snakes. They are weighed and measured and their venom is milked into glass beakers where it will be used for research and to make anti-venom.
It goes down hill from here. Next comes the chopping block where their heads are cut off. They are then skinned and gutted. The meat is fried up and the skins are used for boots and wallets.
For $10, visitors can take a turn at snake skinning. To record their feat they rub their hands in snake blood and leave handprints on the wall.
It’s a little gory, but no one seems bothered, including Miss Snake Charmer 2011 Laney Wallace, who showed up to take her turn in the skinning pit…

“Tomorrow I get to skin snakes and chop their heads off, and I am super-excited about it,” said Laney Wallace, Miss Snake Charmer 2011…